Wednesday, February 16, 2011

101-Word Fiction Contest: three weeks left!

Posted
on Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 9:31 AM

Even if you were to work 10 hours every single day and sleep for eight, that still would give you 126 hours between now and the due date to compose a story that takes, let's face it, about half an hour to compose and just 45 seconds to read aloud.

So you have no excuses: Tell us a story in 101 words or less.

click to enlarge

For aspiring writers, there's even better news: In the two and a half weeks since we announced the contest, we've only received 38 entries (11 of them from one guy alone, tying the record set two years ago). So if you were put off by the demanding guidelines on the contest's entry-form page, fret not. There will probably be the usual avalanche of entries in the final days, but your odds of winning (i.e., getting published) are a whole lot better than your chance of being struck by lightning sometime this year (which is 1 in 500,000) or even of suffering an injury while shaving (1 in 6,600).

(And yes, the deadline is three weeks away, because we've extended it to Thursday, March 10, at 3 pm. The best stories will be published in print and online on March 31. Eight superior fictionalizers will be invited to participate, on the final day of Get Lit!, in a single-elimination tournament known as the 101-Word Fiction Showdown, on Sunday, April 17, from 3:30-5 pm at Auntie's Bookstore.)